There was some header text introducing the subject. I'm trying to retrieve that from the SOFI administrators...
This header included something about assuming that assignments are adjusted so taht the workload would be about the same in all cases.
At the end of the spring 2007 semester, I used the SOFIs to ask students in my Analytical Physics II section about their preferences for different online homework systems. Most of these students had used CAPA for Analytical Physics I, and all had used a combination of CAPA and MasteringPhysics for Analytical Physics II. From Mastering Physics, I had assigned only problems that were different from what is available in CAPA (problems with subparts and hints, ranking problems, vector drawing problems). [MasteringPhysics has lots of problems with essentially the same style as CAPA, but those weren't used.
I did ask them to make a guess about Wliey Plus, but here they had nothing to go on except my description.
Here are the actual questions on the SOFIs and the response distributions.
There was some header text introducing the subject. I'm trying to retrieve that from the SOFI administrators... This header included something about assuming that assignments are adjusted so taht the workload would be about the same in all cases. |
|
| Homework system 1: Homework problems are assigned weekly from the end-of-chapter problems in the text book. However, you are not required to hand in most of them. Feedback is provided on one problem each week, through traditional grading of handed in work, or in-class quizzes, or some similar method. | |
| Homework system 2: Traditional CAPA assignments, such as many of you experienced in Analytical Physics I last semester. | |
| Homework System 3: Wiley Plus, which is a system sort of in between CAPA and MP in style. It is tied to our textbook, and primarily implements the end-of-chapter problems in an on-line system. It has numeric and equation-entry problems, but no ranking tasks or drawing vectors. Problems can give hints in the form of links to the section of the text that apply to the problem, or links to example problems, but Wiley Plus does not have the detailed hint al problem structure that you have seen in MasteringPhysics. Wiley Plus is free when you buy the text new, but costs about $50 if you buy a used text book or don't buy a textbook at all. | |
| Homework System 4: MasteringPhysics. Note that in a course that uses only MasteringPhysics, about half of the homework problems would use the advanced features that you have seen this past semester, and about half would be straight numeric or formula entry similar to CAPA. MasteringPhysics would cost about $45 in addition to the textbook. | |
CAPA comes off really well!
The fairly flat distribution for Wiley Plus is no surprise, considering the limited info. However, it would seem that many don't see a need to move from CAPA to Wiley Plus.
The MasteringPhysics histogram is notably bi-modal. It would be interesting to know why. However, even the more positive component doesn't match the CAPA opinion.